James F. Person is the Deputy Director for the History and Public Policy Program and coordinator of the North Korea International Documentation Project. Person is editor of the NKIDP Working Paper Series and co-editor of the Cold War International History Project Bulletin and History and Public Policy Program Critical Oral History Conference Series. Person has worked as a consultant on historical documentaries.

Education

Ph.D, Modern Korean History, George Washington University; M.Phil., Soviet History, Moscow State University, B.A. History and Fine Arts, The George Washington University.

Experience

Diplomatic historian; Archival research in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF), the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), and the Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive; professorial lecturer, Korea University, Graduate School of International Studies.

Expertise

North Korean history and politics; modern Korean history; modern Asian history; Cold War history; Soviet foreign policy; archives and archival openness.

Related Content for this Expert

The Woodrow Wilson Center has partnered with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), Kyungnam University, to convene the IFES-WWICS Washington Forum on Korea, an annual gathering designed to give a broader historical perspective to policy discussions on Korea in the United States. more

Even with the reemergence of Kim Jong Un, questions remain about the mysterious nature of the inner workings of North Korea. The Wilson Center’s, James Person, who accurately predicted that Kim was still in charge when others were engaged in speculation to the contrary, provides insight into North Korea’s lack of transparency and its recent attempts to engage with other nations that have been described as a “charm offensive.” more

The December 2013 purge and execution of Jang Song Thaek, who was often described as the No. 2 in North Korea, came four months after the ruling Korean Worker’s Party announced that the Ten Points of the Monolithic Ideological System, the basic tenets of the unitary leadership system in North Korea, had been updated for the new leader, Kim Jong Un. more

NKIDP e-Dossier no. 15, "The 1967 Purge of the Gapsan Faction and Establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System," draws on newly obtained and translated Romanian and East German documents to shed new light on the purge of the so-called Gapsan faction and establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System in 1967 by North Korean founding leader Kim Il Sung, events which continue to loom large over North Korea and suggest that the purge and execution of Jang Song Thaek should be analyzed primarily in the context of efforts to solidify the unitary leadership of Kim Jong Un. more

A collection of archival documents on inter-Korean, US-ROK and DPRK-Communist bloc relations from 1976 through 1979, drawn from archives in the United States, South Korea, (East) Germany, Romania, Hungary, Australia, the United Kingdom, the former Yugoslavia, and the United Nations more

The Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, and the Wilson Center will host the next Korea Global Forum Workshop in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, December 10, 2013. more

North Korea recently hinted that it would be interested in co-hosting the 2018 Olympics with Pyeongchang, South Korea. Though the organizing committee for Pyeongchang rejected the idea as unrealistic, the North’s proposal is not without precedent, as documents obtained by the North Korea International Documentation Project demonstrate. more

Martin K. Dimitrov, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, will speak on the puzzling durability of communist autocracies in Eastern Europe and Asia, the the longest-lasting type of non-democratic regime to emerge after World War I. more

Korea Foundation Junior Scholar Jung Joo Kwon will apply game theory analysis to discover patterns of perception and misperception around the third North Korean nuclear crisis in order to understand the shift of powers and policies at the time. more

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Even with the reemergence of Kim Jong Un, questions remain about the mysterious nature of the inner workings of North Korea. The Wilson Center’s, James Person, who accurately predicted that Kim was still in charge when others were engaged in speculation to the contrary, provides insight into North Korea’s lack of transparency and its recent attempts to engage with other nations that have been described as a “charm offensive.”

The December 2013 purge and execution of Jang Song Thaek, who was often described as the No. 2 in North Korea, came four months after the ruling Korean Worker’s Party announced that the Ten Points of the Monolithic Ideological System, the basic tenets of the unitary leadership system in North Korea, had been updated for the new leader, Kim Jong Un.

North Korea recently hinted that it would be interested in co-hosting the 2018 Olympics with Pyeongchang, South Korea. Though the organizing committee for Pyeongchang rejected the idea as unrealistic, the North’s proposal is not without precedent, as documents obtained by the North Korea International Documentation Project demonstrate.

Donga Daily recently carried a profile of NKIDP Coordinator James Person, highlighting Person's research on the origins and evolution of North Korea’s Juche ideology as well as the recent work of NKIDP.

North Korea's provocative behavior may be part of a larger effort to break out of diplomatic isolation and economic dependency on China by pressuring Washington to return to the negotiating table. Commentary co-authored by Jane Harman, Robert Hathaway, and James Person.

North Korea's first successful rocket launch is a truly dangerous development. Although the North Koreans have previously detonated two nuclear devices, until now they have not demonstrated any ability to deliver them. Weaponizing a missile is hard, but Pyongyang's close ally Iran has made great advances in miniaturizing warheads. With the combination of North Korea's nuclear bombs and Iran's technology, a nuclear-tipped missile could be capable of striking the West Coast of the United States in the near future. We can no longer afford to ignore North Korea.

Wilson Center ECNU Scholar Zhao Jike will present a work-in-progress presentation entitled The Role of the USIA in Implementing America’s Policy towards the Soviet Union: A Case Study of the Cuban Missile Crisis which examines the role of the USIA in implementing U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The North Korea International Documentation Project in collaboration with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute presents "Report on a Visit to North Korea" with Charles Armstrong, Abraham Kim and James Person.

The North Korea International Documentation Project and the Korea Economic Institute of America will co-host a briefing on the recent trip of a group of U.S.-based scholars of modern Korean politics and history to North Korea.

On September 28, the ruling Korean Workers' Party (KWP) convened its Third Conference in Pyongyang. The political gathering was used as a platform to unveil a number of leadership changes, including the appointment of Kim Jong Il's third son, Kim Jong Eun, as a Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

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NKIDP e-Dossier no. 15, "The 1967 Purge of the Gapsan Faction and Establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System," draws on newly obtained and translated Romanian and East German documents to shed new light on the purge of the so-called Gapsan faction and establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System in 1967 by North Korean founding leader Kim Il Sung, events which continue to loom large over North Korea and suggest that the purge and execution of Jang Song Thaek should be analyzed primarily in the context of efforts to solidify the unitary leadership of Kim Jong Un.

A collection of archival documents on inter-Korean, US-ROK and DPRK-Communist bloc relations from 1976 through 1979, drawn from archives in the United States, South Korea, (East) Germany, Romania, Hungary, Australia, the United Kingdom, the former Yugoslavia, and the United Nations

NKIDP e-Dossier no. 13, "North Korean Perspectives on the Overthrow of Syngman Rhee, 1960," is introduced by Jong-dae Shin, Christian F. Ostermann, and James Person and features twenty translated documents cataloging North Korea’s immediate responses to the April 19 Revolution in South Korea and how the DPRK attempted to take advantage of the events which ultimately led to the resignation of President Syngman Rhee.

NKIDP e-Dossier no. 12, "The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Origins of North Korea’s Policy of Self-Reliance in National Defense," is introduced by James F. Person and features 6 translated documents which demonstrate how the Cuban Missile Crisis transformed North Korea’s relations with Moscow and Beijing and nudged the country down a path of unsustainable military buildup that, in part, resulted in a nuclear weapons program and was responsible for the country’s economic difficulties in later decades.

NKIDP e-Dossier No. 8, "New East German and Soviet Evidence on North Korean Support to South Korean Political Parties and Labor Unions," is introduced by James F. Person and includes two translated German and Russian documents from 1960 which provide evidence of North Korean political and material support to South Korean political parties, labor unions, and student groups.

A collection of archival documents on inter-Korean, US-ROK and DPRK-Communist bloc relations from 1973 to 1976 compiled in preparation for the 31 October - 1 November 2011 conference "After Detente: The Korean Peninsula, 1973-1976."

"The Rise and Fall of Détente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974" features the transcript of the second in a series of critical oral history conferences jointly convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ North Korea International Documentation Project and the University of North Korean Studies and a selection of primary source documents.

A collection of declassified archival documents on North Korea's Chollima Movement, compiled in preparation for the 10 February 2009 conference The 2009 'New DPRK Revolutionary Upsurge'--A Blast from the Past or a New Path?

A collection of declassified archival documents on Sino-DPRK relations, compiled in preparation for the 6 April 2009 conference North Korean Attitudes Toward China: A Historical View of Contemporary Difficulties